When I first saw the headline at the Root “Black Twitter tells some white dude named Michael Rapaport to keep Janet Jackson’s name out of his mouth“, my first reaction was “Who?”. His name sounded rather familiar, in that “didn’t I see this XXX film recently with a guy who had that last name” kinda way. Thankfully this is the Age of Google, and it only takes a few strokes–keyboard strokes–to find out all there is to know about the dude who swerved out of his lane and into incoming traffic. It turns out Michael Rapaport is an actor. Dun dun duuuuuuun. And a director. A podcast host. A writer. A media personality. Oh, and a comedian. Dude wears a lot of masks. Maybe he’s having a crisis of self, and is trying his hand at a bunch of different things to see what works. I can’t tell if his offending Tweet was meant to Rapaport the comedian or Rapaport the media personality, but either way, this ass ran headlong into oncoming traffic when he decided to cry Janet and let slip his smug ignorance:

It may be 2015, but regressive attitudes concerning women in society continue to thrive. Some people say that a woman cannot be President of the United States. Others think that women in STEM fields cannot reach senior positions because they can’t do the job. Some individuals believe that women cannot helm successful superhero movies. “Gotta be male to be a priest” according to the Mormon Church and the Catholic Church. “Women in combat units is a bad thing” in the eyes of somepeople. There are those who think women shouldn’t be MMA fighters, sit on juries, or be able to vote. On and on it goes. It’s unfortunate that so many people feel that women are not capable or not qualified to perform a job or task by virtue of their sex. These negative beliefs and assumptions about women are pervasive and influence women and men. While there are numerous ways to battle gender stereotypes, software developer Axosoft has a novel approach:

Software developer Axosoft is making us rethink that iconic feminine image used to designate women’s restrooms. Their “It Was Never A Dress” campaign reimagines the bathroom icon wearing a cape and pants, instead of a boxy triangular dress. The official website states:

“It Was Never a Dress is an invitation to shift perceptions and assumptions about women and the audacious, sensitive, and powerful gestures they make every single day. In science, technology, arts, mathematics, politics, houses of worship, on the streets, and in our homes, insightful women are often uninvited, overlooked, or just plain dismissed.“

Having reached 8.5 million Twitter users and receiving coverage from CNN, Time, the Huffington Post, the New York Times, and Today, the gender stereotype-challenging initiative created by Axosoft employees Tania Katan and Sara Breeding looks to be a hit. The campaign’s site is currently soliciting stories, ideas, and images about the reality of being a woman so if you have something to say, head on over there and help disrupt the patriarchal narrative about the role of women in society.

Despite what many make think, as creators and fans, women have been part of the comic book world from the beginning. A new documentary, She Makes Comics, interviews several industry creators as it traces the history of women in the world of comic books.

The Miami Herald reports that Justin Robert Muoio forced his 23-year-old girlfriend to advertise herself as a sex worker for “fetish clientele” and demanded that she have sex with them for two months while she was pregnant in 2013.

Prior to that, the woman alleges that since 2009, Muoio had “physically forced her” to work as a sex worker for an agency called VIP Escort Services, where “she would average 8 to 10 dates a day,” six days a week, according to court documents.

Muoio was arrested back in August during a domestic dispute with the woman, which the police reported as a “heated altercation … related to infidelity.” When the woman tried to escape, Muoio tried to escape, Muoio dead-bolted the door and refused to allow her to leave. She eventually escaped by climbing out of a window while Muoio was talking to his mother.

It gets even worse: Muoio’s mother, Louise Henig-Muoio, 66, an “independent real estate professional” in Miami/Fort Lauderdale, was allegedly also involved, with cops saying she threatened the woman and refused to allow her to leave. Henig-Muoio has been arrested and charged with false imprisonment.

[Fr]aternities wanting to throw parties at the University of Virginia will have to get three members to stay “sober and lucid” to monitor behavior and bedrooms, under new rules imposed after a media report of a gang rape at one of the gatherings.

The student houses will also have to post a guard at the front door and ban pre-mixed drinks, according to the safety regulations the university announced on Tuesday.

At least one of the sober monitors will have to be posted on the staircase leading to bedrooms and have access to every room in the house, the university said.

UVA banned all social events at fraternities and sororities after Rolling Stone magazine published an article in November detailing an alleged rape at a party in September 2012, and accusations that the university failed to respond.

Rolling Stone later said there were editorial mistakes in its story and asked Columbia University’s journalism school to review the coverage.

UVA President Teresa Sullivan said the ban would be lifted, as long as the organizations signed onto the new regulations meant to guard against excessive drinking and the risk of sexual violence.

“I believe the new safety measures recommended by the student leaders in the Greek community (the fraternities and sororities) will help provide a safer environment for their members and guests,” Sullivan said.

Leaked documents showed that Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence were getting a smaller cut of the profits than their male costars for appearing in American Hustle. And that has led movie studios to take a hard look at how they compensate women.

So when Charlize Theron signed on to film a sequel to the 2012 blockbuster Snow White and the Huntsman, she apparently wouldn’t settle until she got what she was worth. According to Page Six, she insisted she be paid as much as costar, Chris Hemsworth, and her persistence paid off. She’ll reportedly be making more than $10 million – just as much as Thor himself.

* * * *

Take a good look at this picture:

Now look at this one:

The first image was taken at a Charlie Hebdo photo-op of various world leaders and you’ll notice the presence of several female heads of state. The second image however? An ultra-orthodox Jewish newspaper photoshopped the female leaders out of the image.

[Th]e march was to express solidarity between nations and included leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and Anne Hidalgo, the current Mayor of Paris, among a majority of male leaders from around the world. Later in the day all the world leaders posed for a picture together.

But you wouldn’t know that any women were in attendance according to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper, The Announcer, which removed the ladies from the photo and ran the shopped picture on the front page of the publication.

I’m a comic book fan (no, that’s not the sekrit) who enjoys animated adaptations of comic book properties (that’s the sekrit). As a child of the 80s, there were two shows I enjoyed more than anything.

This is one:

This is the other:

When the 90s hit, I enjoyed a few more superhero animated series, such as:

B:TAS is still one of the best animated comic book adaptations. Unlike the shows of my childhood, this series still holds up and can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. The dialogue is sharp, the animation pitch-perfect, the voice casting on point, and the stories sophisticated.

Another excellent series with great animation, sharp dialogue, strong plots, good characterization and stories that didn’t talk down to kids.

I enjoyed X-Men: The Animated Series when it came out (and still enjoy watching the show from time to time), but one of its biggest failings was the animation. The dialogue was also not quite as strong as you find in the DC Animated Universe shows. For all that this show has its faults, it was still far and away better than the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, and Iron Man cartoons. Or that horrible Avengers: United They Stand ‘toon. ::Shudder::

Post-2000, I really loved watching the Justice League & Justice League Unlimited shows

JLU was part of the same animated universe created by Bruce Timm for Superman and Batman and had the same complexity and sophistication as both series (though it was lighter in tone than Batman: TAS).

and I thoroughly enjoyed Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (though I don’t care much for its successor):

Marvel seriously upped their game on the animation here. *Finally* a visually stunning animated Marvel show. Coupled with serialized stories, rich characterization that followed the comic books, and sharp dialogue, this show quickly became my favorite animated Marvel show.

I got to watch the Avengers show earlier this year, when I was jobless for 4 months (it was agonizing). During that time, I’d subscribed to Netflix and watched the entire first season of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Having awoken my slumbering love for superhero shows, I decided to watch the Green Lantern animated series (I’ve since cancelled Netflix, bc I’m not impressed with their inventory of movies and tv shows).

I also watched the latter half of Season 1 of Young Justice (a Cartoon Network show featuring the young protegés of various Justice League members as they sought to prove their worth as heroes).

Both shows had season-wide, overarching stories, which I tend to prefer in my shows (stand-alone stories are fine here and there, but I like the connective tissue provided by a serialized story format; sue me, I like continuity). I quite enjoyed both series (though I liked YJ more–it had more mature stories, had emotional resonance, had strong & prominently featured female characters, and featured a black male not just as a lead character, but the team leader), and was eager to watch subsequent seasons.

Guess what I found out? Cartoon Network cancelled Young Justice and Green Lantern! TV shows, whether live-action or animated, are cancelled all the time, so no big deal, right? That’s what I thought until I learned that Cartoon Network executives felt that too many girls and women were watching the Green Lantern and Young Justice. Apparently, the executives wanted those shows marketed primarily to boys. From io9:

Vi at agelfeygelach transcribed part of Dini’s conversation with Smith on the Fat Man on Batman podcast, during which he talks about the cancellation of Young Justice, Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and Tower Prep. He explains that studios are looking to capture younger male viewers, “boys who are into goofy humor, goofy random humor,” and that they aren’t interested in the older Young Justice audience.

The key quotes come when Dini starts talking about the problems that he says executives perceive with female viewers (emphasis is Vi’s):

DINI: “They’re all for boys ‘we do not want the girls’, I mean, I’ve heard executives say this, you know, not [where I am] but at other places, saying like, ‘We do not want girls watching this show.”
SMITH: “WHY? That’s 51% of the population.”

SMITH: “So you can sell them T-shirts if they don’t—A: I disagree, I think girls buy toys as well, I mean not as many as f***ing boys do, but, B: sell them something else, man! Don’t be lazy and be like, ‘well I can’t sell a girl a toy.’ Sell ’em a T-shirt, man, sell them f***ing umbrella with the f***ing character on it, something like that. But if it’s not a toy, there’s something else you could sell ’em! Like, just because you can’t figure out your job, don’t kill chances of, like, something that’s gonna reach an audi—that’s just so self-defeating, when people go, like… these are the same fuckers who go, like, ‘Oh, girls don’t read comics, girls aren’t into comics.’ It’s all self-fulfilling prophecies. They just make it that way, by going like, ‘I can’t sell ’em a toy, what’s the point?’
DINI: “That’s the thing, you know I hate being Mr. Sour Grapes here, but I’ll just lay it on the line: that’s the thing that got us cancelled on Tower Prep, honest-to-God was, like, ‘we need boys, but we need girls right there, right one step behind the boys’—this is the network talking—’one step behind the boys, not as smart as the boys, not as interesting as the boys, but right there.’ And then we began writing stories that got into the two girls’ back stories, and they were really interesting. And suddenly we had families and girls watching, and girls really became a big part of our audience, in sort of like they picked up that Harry Potter type of serialized way, which is what The Batman and [indistinct]’s really gonna kill. But, the Cartoon Network was saying, ‘F***, no, we want the boys’ action, it’s boys’ action, this goofy boy humor we’ve gotta get that in there. And we can’t—’ and I’d say, but look at the numbers, we’ve got parents watching, with the families, and then when you break it down—’Yeah, but the—so many—we’ve got too many girls. We need more boys.'”
SMITH: “That’s heart-breaking.”

DINI: “And then that’s why they cancelled us, and they put on a show called Level Up, which is, you know, goofy nerds fighting CG monsters. It’s like, ‘We don’t want the girls because the girls won’t buy toys.’ We had a whole… we had a whole, a merchandise line for Tower Prep that they s***canned before it ever got off the launching pad, because it’s like, ‘Boys, boys, boys. Boys buy the little spinny tops, they but the action figures, girls buy princesses, we’re not selling princesses.’”

Grumpy cat is here to succinctly express my thoughts on the matter.

If the decision to cancel both shows were based on ratings, or rising costs in animation, I could understand (if not like) the decision. But if what Dini says is true, Warner Brothers executives cancelled both shows (as well as Tower Prep) bc there were too many girls and women watching and they think those girls and women don’t buy toys. Though connected, those are really two separate issues.

Looking at the first, I can’t see the problem. For any product, whether it’s an animated television show or a vacuum cleaner or a car, it’s a good idea to market to multiple demographics because the more people a product appeals to, the greater likelihood that more people will buy the product. So it’s a good thing that girls and women were watching Green Lantern and Young Justice. Take them out of the equation and I wonder how badly the ratings would have declined. There’s no such thing as “too many people are watching this show”. No, what this translates to is “the wrong kind of people are watching these shows”. That’s a great message to send to fans (read that last sentence with oodles of sarcasm).

Looking at the second issue, I’m left thinking ‘so what?’ If girls and women don’t buy the toys they want, why not find out what they will buy and market to them accordingly? Don’t they have a marketing department for just that type of thing?! While not a perfect counter-example (and a different company), in 2013, Hasbro’s sale of boy’s toys fell by 35%. Their girl’s toy sales? They rose by 43%. Look at that! Girls buy toys! News at 11. Oh, and I’m gonna need some evidence before I’ll believe that girls and women don’t buy superhero action figures. I suspect Warner Brothers execs meant that girls and women don’t buy enough superhero toys. In which case, again, find a way to market those toys to them, or find another product based on the shows that girls and women will buy in the numbers they want. Puzzles. Books. Video Games. Hell, T-Shirts…like Kevin Smith suggested. But no, instead of doing that, Warner Brothers has sent a clear message. They’re ok with girls and women watching their shows, but they aren’t their primary concern. Boys and men? They’re the important ones. Because toys sexism.

I’m a comic book fan (no, that’s not the sekrit) who enjoys animated adaptations of comic book properties (that’s the sekrit). As a child of the 80s, there were two shows I enjoyed more than anything.

This is one:

This is the other:

When the 90s hit, I enjoyed a few more superhero animated series, such as:

B:TAS is still one of the best animated comic book adaptations. Unlike the shows of my childhood, this series still holds up and can be enjoyed by children and adults alike. The dialogue is sharp, the animation pitch-perfect, the voice casting on point, and the stories sophisticated.

Another excellent series with great animation, sharp dialogue, strong plots, good characterization and stories that didn’t talk down to kids.

I enjoyed X-Men: The Animated Series when it came out (and still enjoy watching the show from time to time), but one of its biggest failings was the animation. The dialogue was also not quite as strong as you find in the DC Animated Universe shows. For all that this show has its faults, it was still far and away better than the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, and Iron Man cartoons. Or that horrible Avengers: United They Stand ‘toon. ::Shudder::

Post-2000, I really loved watching the Justice League & Justice League Unlimited shows

JLU was part of the same animated universe created by Bruce Timm for Superman and Batman and had the same complexity and sophistication as both series (though it was lighter in tone than Batman: TAS).

and I thoroughly enjoyed Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (though I don’t care much for its successor):

Marvel seriously upped their game on the animation here. *Finally* a visually stunning animated Marvel show. Coupled with serialized stories, rich characterization that followed the comic books, and sharp dialogue, this show quickly became my favorite animated Marvel show.

I got to watch the Avengers show earlier this year, when I was jobless for 4 months (it was agonizing). During that time, I’d subscribed to Netflix and watched the entire first season of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Having awoken my slumbering love for superhero shows, I decided to watch the Green Lantern animated series (I’ve since cancelled Netflix, bc I’m not impressed with their inventory of movies and tv shows).

I also watched the latter half of Season 1 of Young Justice (a Cartoon Network show featuring the young protegés of various Justice League members as they sought to prove their worth as heroes).

Both shows had season-wide, overarching stories, which I tend to prefer in my shows (stand-alone stories are fine here and there, but I like the connective tissue provided by a serialized story format; sue me, I like continuity). I quite enjoyed both series (though I liked YJ more–it had more mature stories, had emotional resonance, had strong & prominently featured female characters, and featured a black male not just as a lead character, but the team leader), and was eager to watch subsequent seasons.

Guess what I found out? Cartoon Network cancelled Young Justice and Green Lantern! TV shows, whether live-action or animated, are cancelled all the time, so no big deal, right? That’s what I thought until I learned that Cartoon Network executives felt that too many girls and women were watching the Green Lantern and Young Justice. Apparently, the executives wanted those shows marketed primarily to boys. From io9:

Vi at agelfeygelach transcribed part of Dini’s conversation with Smith on the Fat Man on Batman podcast, during which he talks about the cancellation of Young Justice, Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and Tower Prep. He explains that studios are looking to capture younger male viewers, “boys who are into goofy humor, goofy random humor,” and that they aren’t interested in the older Young Justice audience.

The key quotes come when Dini starts talking about the problems that he says executives perceive with female viewers (emphasis is Vi’s):

DINI: “They’re all for boys ‘we do not want the girls’, I mean, I’ve heard executives say this, you know, not [where I am] but at other places, saying like, ‘We do not want girls watching this show.”
SMITH: “WHY? That’s 51% of the population.”

SMITH: “So you can sell them T-shirts if they don’t—A: I disagree, I think girls buy toys as well, I mean not as many as f***ing boys do, but, B: sell them something else, man! Don’t be lazy and be like, ‘well I can’t sell a girl a toy.’ Sell ’em a T-shirt, man, sell them f***ing umbrella with the f***ing character on it, something like that. But if it’s not a toy, there’s something else you could sell ’em! Like, just because you can’t figure out your job, don’t kill chances of, like, something that’s gonna reach an audi—that’s just so self-defeating, when people go, like… these are the same fuckers who go, like, ‘Oh, girls don’t read comics, girls aren’t into comics.’ It’s all self-fulfilling prophecies. They just make it that way, by going like, ‘I can’t sell ’em a toy, what’s the point?’
DINI: “That’s the thing, you know I hate being Mr. Sour Grapes here, but I’ll just lay it on the line: that’s the thing that got us cancelled on Tower Prep, honest-to-God was, like, ‘we need boys, but we need girls right there, right one step behind the boys’—this is the network talking—’one step behind the boys, not as smart as the boys, not as interesting as the boys, but right there.’ And then we began writing stories that got into the two girls’ back stories, and they were really interesting. And suddenly we had families and girls watching, and girls really became a big part of our audience, in sort of like they picked up that Harry Potter type of serialized way, which is what The Batman and [indistinct]’s really gonna kill. But, the Cartoon Network was saying, ‘F***, no, we want the boys’ action, it’s boys’ action, this goofy boy humor we’ve gotta get that in there. And we can’t—’ and I’d say, but look at the numbers, we’ve got parents watching, with the families, and then when you break it down—’Yeah, but the—so many—we’ve got too many girls. We need more boys.'”
SMITH: “That’s heart-breaking.”

DINI: “And then that’s why they cancelled us, and they put on a show called Level Up, which is, you know, goofy nerds fighting CG monsters. It’s like, ‘We don’t want the girls because the girls won’t buy toys.’ We had a whole… we had a whole, a merchandise line for Tower Prep that they s***canned before it ever got off the launching pad, because it’s like, ‘Boys, boys, boys. Boys buy the little spinny tops, they but the action figures, girls buy princesses, we’re not selling princesses.’”

Grumpy cat is here to succinctly express my thoughts on the matter.

If the decision to cancel both shows were based on ratings, or rising costs in animation, I could understand (if not like) the decision. But if what Dini says is true, Warner Brothers executives cancelled both shows (as well as Tower Prep) bc there were too many girls and women watching and they think those girls and women don’t buy toys. Though connected, those are really two separate issues.

Looking at the first, I can’t see the problem. For any product, whether it’s an animated television show or a vacuum cleaner or a car, it’s a good idea to market to multiple demographics because the more people a product appeals to, the greater likelihood that more people will buy the product. So it’s a good thing that girls and women were watching Green Lantern and Young Justice. Take them out of the equation and I wonder how badly the ratings would have declined. There’s no such thing as “too many people are watching this show”. No, what this translates to is “the wrong kind of people are watching these shows”. That’s a great message to send to fans (read that last sentence with oodles of sarcasm).

Looking at the second issue, I’m left thinking ‘so what?’ If girls and women don’t buy the toys they want, why not find out what they will buy and market to them accordingly? Don’t they have a marketing department for just that type of thing?! While not a perfect counter-example (and a different company), in 2013, Hasbro’s sale of boy’s toys fell by 35%. Their girl’s toy sales? They rose by 43%. Look at that! Girls buy toys! News at 11. Oh, and I’m gonna need some evidence before I’ll believe that girls and women don’t buy superhero action figures. I suspect Warner Brothers execs meant that girls and women don’t buy enough superhero toys. In which case, again, find a way to market those toys to them, or find another product based on the shows that girls and women will buy in the numbers they want. Puzzles. Books. Video Games. Hell, T-Shirts…like Kevin Smith suggested. But no, instead of doing that, Warner Brothers has sent a clear message. They’re ok with girls and women watching their shows, but they aren’t their primary concern. Boys and men? They’re the important ones. Because toys sexism.

So it is written. So shall it be. At least that’s what things would be like if society’s Gender Police had their way. From early childhood, kids are taught that there are certain activities that are the exclusive domain of boys and girls. Moreover, there will be hell to pay (in the form of peer or parental disapproval, mockery, taunting, bullying, and in some cases acts of violence) when boys and girls stray outside their prescribed gender roles. NO! Girls may NOT be scientists or be athletic. NO! Boys may not wear make-up or dance.

A Dallas area teen has decided to challenge those socially prescribed gender roles. 15 year old singer/songwriter Ben J. Pierce (aka Benny) created the video ‘Little Game‘ and posted it on YouTube. The video makes use of the colors pink and blue to represent rigid gender roles and shows how stifled and frustrated many kids are due to being confined to activities that are designated for their gender. I love that someone this young has a good grasp on how our society treats people based on their actual or perceived gender. Here’s hoping this video gets shared far and wide.

So it is written. So shall it be. At least that’s what things would be like if society’s Gender Police had their way. From early childhood, kids are taught that there are certain activities that are the exclusive domain of boys and girls. Moreover, there will be hell to pay (in the form of peer or parental disapproval, mockery, taunting, bullying, and in some cases acts of violence) when boys and girls stray outside their prescribed gender roles. NO! Girls may NOT be scientists or be athletic. NO! Boys may not wear make-up or dance.

A Dallas area teen has decided to challenge those socially prescribed gender roles. 15 year old singer/songwriter Ben J. Pierce (aka Benny) created the video ‘Little Game‘ and posted it on YouTube. The video makes use of the colors pink and blue to represent rigid gender roles and shows how stifled and frustrated many kids are due to being confined to activities that are designated for their gender. I love that someone this young has a good grasp on how our society treats people based on their actual or perceived gender. Here’s hoping this video gets shared far and wide.

An Australian tv anchor makes a point about sexism in society by wearing the same outfit for nearly a year:

Angered by the sexism he saw being heaped upon his female colleagues – and attempts to downplay it – Karl Stefanovic decided to conduct an experiment.

He wore the same blue suit on air, two days in a row. Then three. A month ticked by without a ripple.

Now, a full year has passed – and he is still wearing the same cheap Burberry knock-off, every morning, on Channel Nine’sToday program.

Not a single audience member has asked about it, he says. Fashion commentators and other media also seem oblivious.

Yet co-host Lisa Wilkinson still receives regular and unsolicited fashion appraisals, as she revealed in her well-received Andrew Olle lecture last year. (“Who the heck is Lisa’s stylist?” one emailer demanded to know. “Today’s outfit is particularly jarring and awful. Get some style.”) These same viewers, however, have failed to observe – or simply don’t care – that the man beside her happily slips on the same outfit, day after day.

“No one has noticed; no one gives a shit,” Stefanovic tells Fairfax Media. “But women, they wear the wrong colour and they get pulled up. They say the wrong thing and there’s thousands of tweets written about them.

“Women are judged much more harshly and keenly for what they do, what they say and what they wear.”

No one cares about the appearance of men on television because society doesn’t determine the worth of men by their looks. Women though? People are socialized to judge women on their clothes, hair, and make-up–the way they look. Shit that’s completely unrelated to their ability to do their jobs. It’s nice to see another man standing up and criticizing sexism. More men need to do so.

An Australian tv anchor makes a point about sexism in society by wearing the same outfit for nearly a year:

Angered by the sexism he saw being heaped upon his female colleagues – and attempts to downplay it – Karl Stefanovic decided to conduct an experiment.

He wore the same blue suit on air, two days in a row. Then three. A month ticked by without a ripple.

Now, a full year has passed – and he is still wearing the same cheap Burberry knock-off, every morning, on Channel Nine’sToday program.

Not a single audience member has asked about it, he says. Fashion commentators and other media also seem oblivious.

Yet co-host Lisa Wilkinson still receives regular and unsolicited fashion appraisals, as she revealed in her well-received Andrew Olle lecture last year. (“Who the heck is Lisa’s stylist?” one emailer demanded to know. “Today’s outfit is particularly jarring and awful. Get some style.”) These same viewers, however, have failed to observe – or simply don’t care – that the man beside her happily slips on the same outfit, day after day.

“No one has noticed; no one gives a shit,” Stefanovic tells Fairfax Media. “But women, they wear the wrong colour and they get pulled up. They say the wrong thing and there’s thousands of tweets written about them.

“Women are judged much more harshly and keenly for what they do, what they say and what they wear.”

No one cares about the appearance of men on television because society doesn’t determine the worth of men by their looks. Women though? People are socialized to judge women on their clothes, hair, and make-up–the way they look. Shit that’s completely unrelated to their ability to do their jobs. It’s nice to see another man standing up and criticizing sexism. More men need to do so.

In a 2009 San Diego Comic-Con panel on the DC mini series Blackest Night, longtime Green Lantern scribe Geoff Johns (and writer of Blackest Night) discussed his plans for that mini-series, including his plans for the various Corps he had created. Johns had already expanded the Green Lantern mythos by introducing the ‘emotional spectrum‘ (an energy field fueled by the emotions of all sentient beings). He explored this emotional spectrum by creating various multi-colored (and powered) Corps. The new Lantern Corps harnessed the power of the Red Light of Rage (the Red Lantern Corps), the Orange Light of Avarice (Larfleeze and Agent Orange), the Blue Light of Hope (the Blue Lantern Corps), and the Indigo Light of Compassion (the Indigo Tribe). These were in addition to the already existing Green Light of Will (the Green Lantern Corps), the Yellow Light of Fear (the Sinestro Corps), and the Violet Aura of Love (the Star Sapphires).

Like the Red Light, the placement of the Violet Light at the far end of the Emotional Spectrum means it can have a particularly overwhelming influence on the minds of those who wield it. The power of the Violet Light was discovered by the Zamarons, who found the remains of two embracing lovers fossilized in violet crystal. Their first attempt to harness this power proved its overwhelming effects, as the original Star Sapphires possessed a rabid obsession in their pursuit of love. The Zamarons have since refined their methods for channeling the Violet Light with their new Star Sapphire Corps through new Star Sapphire Rings and Batteries fueled from a massive super battery on Zamaron.

The title of this post refers to a comment made by Geoff Johns in that Comic-Con panel: “Male Star Saphires [sic]? “Anyone can join,” Johns said, “but most men are not worthy,”. To be a Star Sapphire, one must be chosen by a violet ring. Violet rings search out a host who has great love in their heart. So in Johns’ eyes, most men in the DCU don’t have great love in their heart, but women do. This statement strikes me as yet another layer of sexism on top of the Star Sapphires, who have almost always (until recently) been female. The notion that women are driven by their nature to find love (and a husband) is one rooted in archaic gender roles. “Women as nurturing, loving, supporters, driven by emotion.” “Men as strong-willed, courageous, driven by logic.” To have women being the ones driven by love…overwhelmed by love…rabidly obsessed by love…it all plays into stereotypical roles of women in society and how women are ruled by their hearts (and men by their minds or sexuality). I don’t think that Johns set out to define the Star Sapphires according to regressive ideas of femininity (and he didn’t create the Star Sapphire character, who had existed in various forms for over half a century before Johns created the Star Sapphire Corps). Given that he is a product of a society permeated with stereotypes of women and men, I think his ideas were informed by our culture. Nonetheless, one of the end results of his quest to infuse new ideas into the Green Lantern mythos was, paradoxically, a Corps that was a collection of cliched, stereotypical, sexist ideas about women. He could have offset this by balancing the other Corps with more women (with the exception of the Orange Lanterns, while there are women in all the other multi-colored Corps, they are overwhelmingly male) and/or including men in the Star Sapphires. I tend to think doing both would have worked best, as it would have shown that love is not a feminine emotion and that other emotions are not the near exclusive domain of men. Johns’ comment about most men being unworthy of being a Star Sapphire is ridiculous. Here in the real world, both women and men are often driven (even overwhelmed at times) by love. Women and men have great love in their hearts. It’s an insult to men to say that most of them lack the capacity to have great love in their hearts. Men are not loveless meatsacks filled with logic and driven by their dicks. They have the capacity to experience great love. You wouldn’t know this by looking at the Star Sapphires though (and where are the droves of Men’s Rights Advocates to complain about this legitimate slight against men?):

As noted above, the all-female Star Sapphire Corps is about to gain one more member, a man. Specifically, John Stewart, one of the five Green Lanterns of Earth.

Geoff Johns is no longer steering the Green Lantern titles, so I guess someone had the idea to bring John Stewart into the Star Sapphires. I haven’t been following the books at all (yes, I continue to boycott the new 52 because of the reboot), so I don’t know what’s been going on with John, but if this makes sense in-story, then that’s all that matters. The addition of John Stewart to the Sapphire Corps highlights another problematic element of the wielders of the violet light. Take a look at John Stewart’s costume above. Now scroll up a bit and look at the costumes on the female Star Sapphires. Notice anything? Yup. The women’s costumes show a lot of skin. They’re sexualized. They’re meant to be sexy looking women, bc lots of skin=sexy, right (although things are gradually changing, comics is still largely a male dominated industry, so images of so-called ‘sexy’ women are filtered through the lens of what men think is sexy on a woman; which is different than a woman’s idea of looking sexy. I’d be curious to know what type of sexy costume a female artist would come up with)? Why then, is John not showing a lot of skin? Is he not meant to be sexy? Are only female SS Corps members supposed to be sexualized? Why is that? Oh yeah, bc comics are still marketed largely to men, so women in comics get to be sexualized, while men don’t. Male characters get to be buff, manly, male power fantasies while female characters get to be objects of the male gaze. If John Stewart were truly to become a member of the Star Sapphire Corps, he ought to receive a costume that is meant to be as titillating as the female Sapphires*. He ought to receive a costume similar to this (NSFW). But that would only happen if all things were equal between men and women in comics. Which they aren’t (reason #3489 in ‘Why Feminism is still necessary’).

*I realize that John is still wearing his Green Lantern ring, so it’s possible the conflicting rings are an in-story reason why his attire isn’t as revealing as the other Star Sapphires. Still. Double standard. Plus, this:

Chang: There was actually a handful of different designs that I had submitted, some that were more based on his Green Lantern outfit but had some pink accents to it — even a hybrid of both — because he still had the Green Lantern ring on at the same time. There was even one where he was almost shirtless, because the Star Sapphires don’t have a lot of clothing on them. So I thought maybe John would be pseudo-shirtless and half-naked. But at the end we ended up going with this. It’s a little more. A lot of the lines are pretty jagged. I think that has something to do with the recent turmoil that he’d experienced. But the green energy is still very fluid on his exterior. So I think there’s a nice counterbalance, ultimately, with the final design that is uniform but exudes energy.

Also, one day, I saw Van without his shirt on. That was the influence for the initial John design. [Laughs] Luckily, the editors said, “Maybe we should stick with something a little bit more conservative.”